


how to catch a shadow

by arcanamagnus



Series: Peaceful Mode [5]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Horror Comedy, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, VERY heavy on the comedy, Vampires, but like. very minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 17:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19339024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanamagnus/pseuds/arcanamagnus
Summary: All Antillans can be vampires. Unfortunately none actually know how to deal with them.





	how to catch a shadow

Antilla was a world of endless night, dark and inhospitable, but even there art persisted. The academics who spent their orns enshrouded in the stillness of their own offices would quickly divest themselves of that ornery as their work shift ended, and head straight to the Vertex Theatre to see whatever new marvel the organisers spun out this time.

Stormsong absently tuned their piezoelectric fiddle for a quick rehearsal before recharging. It was nothing short of a miracle that them of all Antillans was picked to be the opener for tonight’s show, and they wouldn’t fool themself into thinking their dusty beige plating or their clunky build held much continuity with Rosanna’s whole deal, so it had to be that something about their music really rang with the organics that ran the theatre. And so they had to make sure that every minor detail about their performance was perfect.

They sat by the window, fiddle resting on their shoulder plate, and readied the first few bars of an overture.

Before they could touch the bow to the strings, a loud thud right above their head startled them. Stormsong barely had the time to look up before a mech at least as large as them landed on the windowsill and pushed them into the room, jumping in after and pulling down the blinds.

Another thud resounded from the roof, softer than the one before. The new mech magnetised themself to the ceiling and made a shushing motion. Soon enough came a sharp knocking on the window frame, and Stormsong _really_ didn’t want to answer it.

But they also didn’t want to incur the ire of _whomever the Pit that was_ , so they slowly lifted the blinds with their bow, only for them to just be pulled up by the mech squatting on their windowsill.

“Have you seen this mech?” They shoved a datapad with a blurry picture in Stormsong’s face, then hastily pulled it back “Wait, I got a better one in here somewhere. Just, uh, gimme a klik.”

“I’ve seen some bozo _asking me questions whilst hanging off my window_ ,” Stormsong gritted out in a diminished harmony, “I am _busy_ ”, they made a show of pointing out the fiddle laying haphazardly on the floor.

“Wait, wait, this is imp—”

Stormsong cut them off by closing the acoustically treated window on them and letting the blinds fall closed again.

“And _you_ ,” they pointed at the intruder on their ceiling, “ _Who the frag are you?_ ”

They unceremoniously dropped on Stormsong’s bed.

“A fellow star, obviously? Why else would I have a crazy fan trailing after me?” She grinned, classic Nemesis Spawn can-opener teeth on full display, “But in all seriousness though, the name’s Black Shadow. I was fixing the generator when this kid with headlights brighter than Vector Sigma itself started shouting at me.”

“So you just jumped in through the nearest window?” Stormsong crossed their arms — _was this weirdo for real?_

“What part of ‘headlights brighter than Vector Sigma’ y’didn’t get? I’m _Antillan_ ,” Black Shadow gestured widely at herself, “Ain’t exactly supposed to be out in lighting any brighter than Mama Nemesis’ energon lines.”

“...Right. So, are you going to leave or will I have to make you?”

Black Shadow laughed and sat up slowly.

“Oh, dearie, y’can’t _begin_ making me do anything.”

* * *

 

Stormsong awoke joors later in a hospital bed under watch of two members of Antilla’s meager rescue team. That their first thought upon waking was asking if they missed their concert probably said a little too much about them.

“The concert was cancelled,” Flareup answered, bouncing her leg, “Which was a pity, I was really excited for it.”

“We’re on very very v-very high alert right now! This never happens,” Fixit stammered, leaning forward on his high chair, “You’re fine right now though, so don’t worry about it!”

“That’ll only make them more worried!”

“I said it’ll be fine! _Catapult_ is on it!”

“ _What_ is going on?” Stormsong finally had it, “What never happens?”

Fixit and Flareup looked at each other, apprehensive. Fixit eventually relented with a diminished whine:

“Y-you were attacked by an energon cam-, dam-, ugh, vampire.”

“Damage was minor, though. Fixit got all your lines pretty quick, so there should be no complications,” Flareup completed, “Cyberwarp is talking to your building’s custodian right now. She’ll want to take your statement after.”

* * *

 

Black Shadow perched upon the rigging system at the Vertex Theatre. The building was almost entirely empty, save for a few organics and service drones, and that was just how she liked it. It had been easy to get in, as it had been all the times before. They had never changed the passcodes from when she had been lighting technician, and the storage closet for mechanoid employees where she hid her outer armour continued to be mostly abandoned.

Now she just had to loosen nostalgia’s grip on her.

To say she missed the theatre would be an understatement. That had been the most interesting use of her degree in electrical engineering to date. Definitely beat repair jobs and reverse-engineering rare technology, such as the piezoelectric violin in her subspace.

Getting that had been such a lucky strike, though. Last orn was supposed to have been just a regular odd job, but that blasted little detective that had been trailing her since her last big score just _had_ to show up and force her to take drastic measures. Black Shadow could’ve just left it at that, but that violin had been too valuable to leave behind, and the only weapons she had on her were the natural ones. They’d be on the lookout for a vampire, not a thief, and that’d serve her oh so well.

She climbed the rest of the way up to the theatre’s roof with practiced ease. The view of the black hole sun up there was stunning as ever, but she wasn’t going off into space this time. Black Shadow transformed to her vehicle mode with a slowness characteristic of those who hadn’t transformed in a very long time — maybe she ought to use her shell less often —, and took off into the red and black horizon.

* * *

 

The schematics and notes on Searchlight’s wall were in the process of getting an update. He’d been _so close_ last night — he’d finally narrowed down his list of suspects for the unreported thefts he’d been keeping tabs on to this _one_ mech, only for her to escape and escalate the situation from theft to outright robbery and assault.

He knew her name now though, and that would lead him to victory. Primus, he was sounding like Nightbeat now. Maybe he should call her.

“ _Searchlight_ ,” Catapult’s searing voice resonated as the doors to his room sharply slid open, “Give me the scoop on the vampire.”

“Did you _hack_ my door?”

“I didn’t hack your—”

“You hacked my door!”

“I didn’t hack your door, you gave me the code last time I hauled your starving half-delirious aft back home,” she threw her hands up and sighed a ninth, “Cyberwarp’s report posits you at the scene of the crime last orn, so just spit it out already.”

Searchlight slid his chair out from under the desk with a strong kick. He stood and began pacing.

“I traced a series of thefts I got schematised _here_ ,” he gestured at his north wall, “to an engineer named Black Shadow—”

“Yes, the report mentions that name as well.”

“—so I figured out her next gig to go and confront her, but she ran and I ended up losing her.”

“And then you went to knock on the nearest window to ask if they’d seen her with, and I quote, ‘the blurriest slagging picture I ever seen in my life’?” Catapult read from the datapad she unsubspaced.

“I… may have had a circuit speeder or two.”

“We’ll need to have a talk about that later,” she beeped a minor seventh, “Back to the point, I need _you_ to point me like a gun at that vamp.”

Catapult passed him the datapad, and he began filling in his schemes with Cyberwarp’s information.

“Alright so, knowing your vampire is the same mech as my thief,” he tapped at a steel sheet on the wall, “which also corroborates with the tendency I established of her having a particular interest in folks in the entertainment industry, and the employment records I’ve dug up of her tenure in the Vertex, which has had several minor break-ins this past stellar cycle, I’d point you at the theatre. For investigations, at least.”

“Thanks, Lighter. Now,” she grabbed him by the shoulders, “let’s get some real energon in you.”

“And then you’ll take me vampire hunting?”

“We’ll see about that.”

* * *

 

Catapult took him vampire hunting.

Searchlight was considerably more helpful when properly fed, even if he was far more skittish when in his right mind. He was currently in an abandoned storage room checking out the outrageous amount to trash left there while Catapult talked to the organics.

“So what you saw was an all black minibot with green optics?”

“Yes, they were at most a head or two taller than me,” the janitor, a particularly tall Antillan, confirmed, “They seemed to have much more strength than I’d expect, though. Saw them jump to the lighting rigs in a single bound!”

“Alright,” Catapult added to the updated report, “Thank you for your time.”

“Cat! I got something!” Searchlight called out from inside the storage.

She waded through the clutter following the blinding light of Searchlight’s headlights, almost tripping several times.

“What you got?” Catapult finally laid her hand on his shoulder, “What _is_ that?”

Sitting against the corner of the room was a Cybertronian, with no life signs but also no greying. They were large, mostly black, red and silver, and also had silver horns — exactly the description obtained by all their reports.

“It’s loadbearer armour,” he stated, “ _This_ is Black Shadow.”

And so their search just got so much more difficult.

**Author's Note:**

> for Lore on energon vampires, check out chapter 3 of "poems for quintessa", also in this series


End file.
